Here's another practical question, feel free to not consider it until the polls are in - I just wanted to open this for consideration. Plus, it probably won't affect many comics, but since one of the comics it does affect is mine, I thought I'd ask.

My comic runs as a regular webcomic on Webcomics Nation (in English) and in irregular bursts in a German more-or-less monthly webcomics mag called LOA. So it's clearly not one bilingual run of a webcomic, rather two very different ways of presenting the same material in different webcomic formats. Would that count as bilingual if we chose the bilingual option?

wendyw

Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2009 10:46 pm Post subject:

The poll is now active.

Zoe Robinson

Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2009 12:31 am Post subject:

That sounds like the best way to go ahead right now.

wendyw

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 11:31 pm Post subject:

I'm just working out all the options for Sunday's polls and so far it seems the only one we have for this category would be a yes/no option. A yes result would keep this category live right up until nomination time and, if by then the committee have a workable way of doing it, it will be added to the full award list, but until we have details worked out it won't be fully confirmed.

Is this okay with everybody?

wendyw

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 11:10 am Post subject:

Just bumping this thread to save it from the clutches of the dreaded guest account.

Zoe Robinson

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 3:03 am Post subject:

I have been thinking about this category a lot, trying to put together what I feel would be the most workable method of running it. I realise that it may require judges who can read (different to speaking) the language in question well enough to understand the humour, but that's not necessarily the case. In fact, if it came to that I don't think the category would be at all workable.

Instead, I think for the category to work, there need to be some translated strips to work with. My initial thoughts were that anyone nominating a comic in this category could send a text file with translations for a few strips (probably five at the most) along with the nomination. This puts a higher burden on people nominating comics in this category compared to other categories but it puts all the strips on a level playing field, judgment-wise and means the judges do not need to understand the language in question in order to judge the comic. It opens the category up to a much wider audience, since we would no longer be dependent on the language skills of the judges (and thus the issue of French and Spanish comics having an advantage).

Alternatively, the category could be made open only to comics with English translations available. This narrows the playing field considerably but it also reduces the burden on the nominator while keeping the playing field level with regard to the judges. I know some people have argued that comics with English translations could just be nominated with all the native English comics but I don't believe that's fair. If English is your second language, your translations will likely not be up to the standard of a native English speaker's writing. You'll miss out on the nuances of the language, because that's part and parcel of not being a native speaker.

I know this from living with foreigners while at university. They had been in the country for years and spoke English fluently, but there would still be phrases or ways of saying things that would draw blank looks from them, resulting in me having to explain some quirk of the language that they had not come across before. This is before I even introduced them to the wonders of my half-Geordie, half-Pitmatic dialect, too (oh, that was a fun day).

Given this lack of native familiarity with the intricacies of English, I don't believe it would be fair to expect a foreign language comic to compete amongst the native English comics. Whatever the mechanism chosen, I feel it is important that we recognise the achievements of non-English comics.

jynksie

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 2:41 am Post subject:

ttallan wrote:

It might be possible if you get a judge panel who all speak different languages and one language in common, and then can debate fairly and honestly amongst themselves the qualities of nominees, each representing to the other judges the comics in the languages they speak. Or read.

Unless we are confident in our judges, though, I don't think we can do it. We can hope maybe the different countries can step up to honour their own?

I second this emotion

Bufko

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 2:34 am Post subject:

Yeah, me too!

Dutch

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:58 am Post subject:

I've often been accused of being a non-English comic...

ttallan

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 10:31 pm Post subject:

It might be possible if you get a judge panel who all speak different languages and one language in common, and then can debate fairly and honestly amongst themselves the qualities of nominees, each representing to the other judges the comics in the languages they speak. Or read.

Unless we are confident in our judges, though, I don't think we can do it. We can hope maybe the different countries can step up to honour their own?

Tskingdom

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 6:04 pm Post subject:

Ah, Hungary... We are distantly "related" with them which may not show on the written text but one can hear it in speech. Unfortunately, (other than Estonian which is kind of more melodic and happily-tuned old Finnish influenced by some other languages and some sudden -and it has to be said- often rather amusing-sounding words added) itīs after all too distand to be actually understood. However, it sounds beautiful, in my ears at least. Thanks!

dooky

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 5:06 pm Post subject:

Bilingual might be a more workable idea. We'd have to add the condition that it's not an English-language comic that's later been translated into other languages (Girly, for example, is available in a few languages but nominating it would be against the spirit of the award).

Quote:

I havenīt seen any Icelandic webcomics yet (I guess) but definitely would take a look with great expectations!

Neither have I... This comic claims to have an Icelandic version, but I don't think it's currently available online. I can show you a Hungarian comic, though - Sziluett. I've no idea what's going on in it, but they've linked to me for ages so I like to return the favour whenever possible.

Tskingdom

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 4:35 pm Post subject:

How about a category for Bilingual comics then? (thereīs a thread for those in here so it seems to be considered as "actual term" and apparently there are some of those around too) Or Translated comic? It takes a time and effort to get translations somehow working right and still they are rarely able to fully compete with those written originally in English by a skilled native speaker to be honest, no matter how clever and fluent the original gibberish (as my foreign pals say) might be - and more complex the original dialogue, more tricky the translation process is. What might be the problem here, with bilinguals thrown into regular category with native English nominees, most likely things will go pretty automatically Anglo-Saxon as usually (again, no offense good Lads and Ladies) because of the translation issue, some cultural oddities (in case itīs not Japanese ) and so on.

On the other hand, English is English, translated or not and Spot is a dog. But just thought to point out a thing or two about the subject.

I havenīt seen any Icelandic webcomics yet (I guess) but definitely would take a look with great expectations!

LukeSurl

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:20 pm Post subject:

dooky wrote:

We should have this. The question is: is it workable? Who judges it? If you have a French comic versus a German comic versus an Icelandic comic, do we need a panel of judges who speak all of those languages in order to get a fair opinion? Do we exclude the Hungarian comic because we couldn't find any Hungarian speakers?

I really want to see this award go ahead. There are just practical issues that need to be looked at.

Yeah, you'd need a jury of tetralingual people. Your nomination stage would also be heavily biased towards the French comic (130 million speakers worldwide) over the Icelandic comic (less than half a million)

The only way it could work is if the comics are translated into one language (probably english), in which case they can compete in the regular competition.

dooky

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:11 pm Post subject:

We should have this. The question is: is it workable? Who judges it? If you have a French comic versus a German comic versus an Icelandic comic, do we need a panel of judges who speak all of those languages in order to get a fair opinion? Do we exclude the Hungarian comic because we couldn't find any Hungarian speakers?

I really want to see this award go ahead. There are just practical issues that need to be looked at.